


Designation

by sinceraly



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Not A Happy Ending, The Hollow Knight needs a hug, This is thk introspective, i May extend this out into an actual fix but. I’m not sure so, im team Pale King was a dumbass, this is really short and not betad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 02:11:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinceraly/pseuds/sinceraly
Summary: All The Hollow Knight had ever wanted was a name.





	Designation

The Hollow Knight had never had a name.

From the moment of their flawed conception, they had been known as so - The Hollow Knight: a being comprised of emptiness, a godless combination of SOUL and void, of light and dark, never supposed to exist, yet called into a miserable world as it’s last hope for survival. The Hollow Knight never had a name - but it was all they had ever wanted.

A name meant something. It meant purpose, a life, a being. It meant thoughts and feelings and an _existence_ , something The Hollow Knight had, but never got to take part in. They were empty, they were - they weren’t a bug of the same kind. No, they were a monster, and even if the Pale King (...father?) had never told them such, they knew. They knew from the glances, the glares they would receive from within the Palace Walls, as they grew to huge height, as their shell filled out with sharp edges and rough texture, as their horns elongated. They were dangerous, a means to an end. They knew this. Everyone in the Palace knew this. They were hollow. They were a knight. They were The Hollow Knight.

Then why did it hurt so much?

The Hollow Knight grew attached to the Pale King, regardless of his mistakes. Regardless of the circumstances of their birth, the Pale King was the closest thing they had to a father. The White Lady was ashamed of herself, of the Pale King, of the cruel methods he employed to create the ultimate weapon against the Grand Light, and of her blind eye towards them. The Hollow Knight never saw her. They very rarely saw anyone of note, aside from the Pale King. And though the pull of the Abyss was great, the temptation to see the destroyed and discarded remains of their siblings weighing heavily on their shoulders, there was a fear. The Pale King had destroyed their siblings - there was nothing to stop him from destroying The Hollow Knight, if they so much as blinked away inky black tears ridden with void. So, The Hollow Knight, knowing well that they were not so, pretended be empty, instead choosing to live and try their hardest to beat the Grand Light without the emptiness the Pale King and other members of the Palace swore they had.

They grew. When their sibling reached for them on the bridge leading to the Abyss, a fainted _sibling, help, please_ echoing through the void-linked consciousnesses of their mind, they turned their back, instead choosing to follow the Pale King into the Palace, ignoring the pleas of the hundreds of voices calling to them in fear and pain. Later that night, they cried to themselves, wondering when their existence would stop being one of sacrifice before their sacrifice officially began.

Knowing of the pressing reason why they were created, The Hollow Knight didn’t ask for much. Nonverbal and intimidating as they were after their first few molts, not many bugs interacted with them, and the Pale King never really attempted to pick at their mind, instead allowing them to accompany him in moments of silence and quiet companionship. Yes, The Hollow Knight didn’t ask for much - but they wished, oh how they wished. They wished for friendship, for the people of the Kingdom to know of how much The Hollow Knight wished to be one of them, for a proper home, with parents who didn’t look at them in shame or in practiced observation. But they would have settled for a name.

And even as they are now, bound to their sacrifice by chains and the locks of three sleeping consciousnesses echoing through the seals of the Temple of the Black Egg, they wish they could have had one. A name, they wonder, reaching out for the bright light blinding them from inside of their mind, from inside of their void-tainted Soul. A name. A name. A Name - _SERVE ME_ \- a name .

_I can give you a name,_ says the blinding light, and The Hollow Knight becomes no more.

**Author's Note:**

> hello I am in Hell because of this game,  
> In reality it’s more because of several games bc I’m also in castlevania hell right now but Hollow Knight is Heavy rn bc none of my friends are into it atm. So I’m Suffering, Silently, NBD
> 
> Anyways! Twitter is @WIDOWTRACERS, feel free to follow me on their where I scream Mostly about the two aforementioned games woot


End file.
